Dubai killing removes top rival to Chechen leader

‘PROVOCATION’: A suspect in custody said a guard of Russian parliamentarian Adam Delimkhanov provided Sulim Yamadayev’s murderer with a gold-plated pistol

AP , MOSCOW

Police officials sit next to a screen showing a picture of the pistol that was allegedly used in the murder of former Chechen army commander Sulim Yamadayev, during a press conference at police headquarters in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Sunday.

PHOTO: EPA

The assassin of a renegade Chechen warlord tossed a gold-plated pistol to the ground next to the body — a flamboyant coda to the death in Dubai that marked the removal of the last major rival of Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader.

Dubai’s police chief has accused a Russian parliamentarian — and confidant of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov — of masterminding the March 28 killing of Sulim Yamadayev thousands of kilometers from Chechnya, outside a beach-front residential complex in a glitzy neighborhood of Dubai.

Kadyrov on Monday defended lawmaker Adam Delimkhanov, a man he called his “friend, brother and, moreover, my right hand,” and said the police allegations against him were a “provocation” and “slander.”

A suspect in custody told authorities that one of the lawmaker’s guards had provided the killer with the gold-plated pistol that killed Yamadayev, the Dubai police chief said.

The lawmaker was in Syria, according to Kadyrov, but he was expected to return to Russia. As a member of parliament Delimkhanov enjoys immunity from prosecution, and Russia’s constitution bans the extradition of Russian citizens.

Delimkhanov, 39, a cousin of the Chechen president who represents the region in parliament, has denied involvement.

Any Russian investigation into the Dubai allegations would be unlikely to lead to charges or to threaten Kadyrov, who is key to keeping the southern region stable after two separatist wars in 14 years.

The Dubai assassination was the most visible killing of a renegade Chechen figure since 2004, when former Chechen separatist president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev died in Qatar. Two Russian intelligence agents were convicted and sent back to Russia to serve their sentences.

Many of Kadyrov’s rivals have met violent ends after lives spent fighting in the Chechen wars, including a former warlord who was shot dead by Chechen police on a Moscow avenue and a former Kadyrov bodyguard killed outside his home in Vienna.

During Kadyrov’s presidency, the Chechen capital, Grozny, was transformed from a moonscape of hulking ruins into a modern city. He oversaw the construction of Europe’s biggest mosque as part of his efforts to impose Islamic values and blunt the appeal of Islamic rebels.

Yulia Latynina, a political commentator and author who has traveled extensively in Chechnya, said Kadyrov’s push to rebuild Chechnya has made him the undisputed master of the predominantly Muslim region.

Sporadic hit-and-run raids by bands of rebels don’t threaten his authority, and hundreds of former militants have joined Kadyrov’s feared security units.

Rights groups have accused his militia of rampant abductions, torture and murder.

Tensions between Yamadayev, the man killed in Dubai, and Kadyrov emerged soon after he was elected in 2007 — three years after Kadyrov’s father, the former leader, was himself killed in a rebel bombing.

Kadyrov on Monday said his government had some evidence suggesting Yamadayev could have been involved in the deadly 2004 attack against his father, the Interfax news agency reported.

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